Challenge Events

Challenge Event may be anything from a 5k run, a triathlon, or a Tough Mudder event, Color Run, Bull Run or Spartan Race event. Spartan events and Mudder events are obstacle course runs. At a recent Tough Mudder event, I got to document Wheaties participation as a new sponsor. That event saw 15,000 participants run a 12 mile course designed by the British SAS (equivalent to our Special Forces or Navy Seals). Participants at one point jumped from a15 foot platform into a deep pit filled with the muddiest water I've ever seen. And they paid $200 each to do so. Amazing!
Spartan Events, on the other hand, vary in length from a short 3 mile sprint to an event labeled "The Beast". In a recent Sprint event in Burnet, Texas, where I was privileged to be invited to shoot the event, participants traversed a 4.5 mile spring containing 10+ different obstacles, including a fire pit (real fire) and a gauntlet where "Gladiators" waited with pugilsticks to beat and bar the participants path. Those "Gladiators" were not gentle.
"The Beast", however, at Glen Rose, Texas southwest of Fort Worth, was a 13.4 mile monster with 18+ challenges, including a rope walk across a frozen pond where about half the participants broke the ice plus a rope climb where, at top, they must ring a bell. The rope is suspended over a muddy, water filled pit, forcing runners to jump to reach the rope.